VIRGINIA: 



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DELIVERED BEFORE THE VIRGINIA ALIMIA (iF THE THI DETA KAI'PA SOCIETY, IN THE 
CHAI'EL OF WILIJAM AND MARV COLLEGE, \V1 LLIAMSUURU, JL'LY 3, 185G. 



BY .mo. R. THOMPSON. 



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Published by Order of the Society. 



RICHMOND : 

MACFARLANE & FERGUSSON, 

1856. 



76 3* 3 3 



TO 

B. JOHNSON BARBOUR, ESQ 

THESE HUMBLE VERSES 

AKE INSCEIBED BY THE AUTHOR, 

AS THE SLIGHT TOKEN OF 

A VERY GREAT REGARD. 




fl'ILLIAM .WD MART COLLEGE. 



POEM. 



Hail ! blue-eyecl Sister of tlie Sacred ^Ye\l, 

Whose smile illumines every bosky delP, 

And on each storied lake or landscape streams, 

Like moonlight thro' the ivory gate of dreams-, — 

A fond admirer here invokes your aid, 

Altho' a poet neither "born" nor " made," 

He wants, what worthier bards have wanted too. 

A fine exordium — and he turns to you I 

If his unlicensed brow no Avreath of bays, 

In token of the poet's rank, display's — 

If his prosaic shoulders do not bear 

The singing-robe your favorites always wear — 

Yet let him in your radiant realm remain 

A little season, and inspire his strain ; 

Then should he, haply, prove unworthy still, 

Some modest pogt, Euterpe, let him fill ; 

He asks not fame — contented to revise 

Apollo's proof-sheets, and forego the prize. 

Meantime, most gracious and respected Muse, 
What theme this morning shall your vot'ry choose ? 



Virginia — A Poem. 

I catch a gush of melody, and clear 
This tuneful answer breaks upon the ear — 
" Set restless Fancy free, and where her wing 
Conducts the eye, of that bright region sing!' 
'Tis done; unloosed the jesses, Fancy sails 
Buoyant aloft upon the friendly gales. 
Awhile she moves in arrowy flight along 
The sunny ether of the land of Song, 
Ranges from coast to crag, nor leaves unseen 
The purple meadows that repose between, 
Then fondly bends, with poising wing, above 
The dear Virginia of our hopes and love ; 
As the swift eagle, circling proudly o'er 
Our boundless continent from shore to shore, 
Sees rock and river, prairie, waste and wood, 
The shining city and the solitude, 
The snowy sail by Huron's breezes fanned, 
And the light ripple on the bayou's strand. 
And stoops at last to fold his sombre pinion 
On some blue mountain of the Old Dominion ! 



Imperial land ! could ever song of mine 

With fairer glories make thy borders shine — 

Could my rude minstrelsy with charm invest 

Each spot in beauty or in grandeur drest — . 

And to thy Oread-haunted valleys give 

A grace, united with their own to live — 

How should thy rivers to the ocean glide, 

Like Arno's stream or Teviot's "silver tide," 

Reflecting each upon its mirror'd face 

The light which genius lends its dwelling place ; 

How should Boccaccio's mellow atmosphere 

Hang round each hill and kiss each dimpled mere, 

How should thy ramparts echo with the blast 

Of lordly music flowing out the past ; 

From the cool beach, where white with rage and frantic 

Dash the wild billows of the chafed Atlantic, 

Along the Ridge, whose azure peaks on high 

Toss their soft summits 'gainst an amber sky. 

To where Ohio sends, through darkling woods, 

Its tribute to the mighty Sire of Floods ; 

Till the whole space thy distant lines surround, 

Our goodly heritage, were classic ground, 



Virginia — A Poem. 

And all thy pleasant places, noble State, 
Thenceforth forever should be consecrate 



Virginia ! thou hast had in plenteous store 

The gifts men chiefly honour and adore ; 

Thy story burns with Valour's dazzling blaze 

Or calmly glows with Wisdom's milder rays, 

While Eloquence, that melts the coldest hearts, 

To the bright record all its fire imparts : 

The Warrior, resting on his stainless sword, 

The Orator, whose lips persuasion poured, 

The Statesman, he who wrought from chaos warm 

The elements of empire into form, 

The jurist, who has "shaped the State's decrees," 

All, like the figures on a marble frieze. 

Stand grandly forth, thy greatness to proclaim, 

Upon the tablets of thy ancient fame. 

One stately image yet is wanting there. 

The Bard, with fillets twined around his hair, 

No favored son, created for all time. 

For thee has ever " built the lofty rhyme," 

And joined the radiant, rose-encircled throng. 

Within the Temple dedicate to Song : 

One gifted child thou hadst, who reached, in vain, 

The vast propylon of the gleaming fane, 

'Twas his to see the columns, pure and white. 

Of marble and of ranged chrysolite — 

The lines of jasper through the golden gates — 

Alas ! no more was suffered by the Fates. 

Like Baldur, fairest of the sons of morning, 

The halls of Odin lustrously adorning. 

He early caught the pale, blue, fearful glance 

Of shadowy Hela's awful countenance. 

Lamented Cooke ! if all that love could lend 

To the chaste scholar and the faithful friend, 

If all the spoiler forced us to resign 

In the calm virtues of a life like thine, 

Could bid him turn his fatal dart aside 

From our young Lycidas, thou had'st not died : 

Peace to the Poet's shade ! His ashes rest 

Near the sweet spot he loved on earth the best. 

The modest daisies from the surface peeping. 

As from the sod where Florence Vane lies sleeping 



Cf5 



Virginia — A Poem. 

While his own river murmurs, as it flows, 
Perpetual requiem o'er his soft repose. 

And still another child Virginia nursed, 

Who had her glories loftily rehearsed, 

But that his genius sought "a wild, weird clime," 

Beyond the bounds of either space or time. 

From whose dim circuit, with unearthly swell, 

A burst of lyric rapture often fell, 

Which swept at last into a strain as dreary 

As a lost spirit's plaintive Miserere ; 

Unhappy PoE, what destiny adverse 

Still hung around thee both to bless and curse ; 

The Fairies' gifts, who on thy birth attended. 

Seemed all with bitter maledictions blended ; 

The golden crown that on thy brow was seen. 

Like that Medea sent to Jason's queen, 

In cruel splendor shone but to consume. 

And decked its victim proudly for 'th<} temk 

Yet shall the Poet make in coming time, 
His bright avatar in our sunny clime ; 
And where shall inspiration urge the soul 
Thro' grand poetic harmonies to roll, 
JS'Iore fittingly than in this calm retreat 
Of studious Science — Learning's earliest seat? 
Where does Romance more lavishly diffuse 
Upon our soil its ever brilliant hues 
Than here, where Patriotism's sacred glow 
Xindled the wrath that laid the tyrant low ? 
I walk these ancient haunts with reverent tread, 
And seem to gaze npon the mighty dead : 
Imarrination calls a noble train 
From gloom and darkness back to life a-galn, 
Whose air majestic lends. a statelier grace, 
A soft enchantment to the honored place. 
So have I strolled at twilight's rosy hour 
Along the quiet street, where Morton's tower 
Lifts its rich tracery thro' the nodding trees, 
That rise o'er Oxford's halls of lettered ease, 
And felt the presence of the tranquil scene, 
Till forms long-buried flitted o'er the green ; 
There graceful Raleigh moved, immortal name ! 
And Addison from cloistered musings came, 



Virginia — A Poeyn. 

There stalked portentous Johnson's burly shade, 
And pensive Collins down the vista strayed ; 
And as they vanished into common air, 
Their clustering memories, ever fresh and fair, 
Like ivy round each turret seemed to twine 
And every chapter-house became a shrine ! 

'Tis thus that Art is long, tho' Time is fleeting — 

The wise old maxim that we keep repeating — 

And Wisdom, with endurance not of earth, 

Outlives for aye the age that gave it birth ; 

So shall our Academus planted here 

Survive, in its results, from year to year, 

Tho' ruin settles on its antique Avails 

And from its lonely courts the bittern calls ; 

So shall the writer, w^ho with skill portra,ys 

Virginia's history in coming days, 

Mark how it enters in the general plati 

And with delighted eye its progress scan, 

A thread of gold still running brightly thro' 

The wondrous tapestry from Old to New. 

Thus tracing here the honors interwove 

Of State and College, Capitol and Grove, 

I leave unsung those grand, heroic men 

Who walked the heights, so dizzy to our ken, 

Where first our starry banner was unfurled, 

And seem yet visible to half the world — 

And follow Memory, as she fondly turns 

To yet more precious, if less stately urns. 

But twice the roses of the Spring have blown, 

Since rambling far in other lands, alone, 

I sought the hillock where the cypress bends 

O'er Dew, lamented still by " troops of friends," 

The sage, whose active and well ordered mind 

Books had enriched and social life refined, 

And pondering there on wisdom, learning, worth. 

Buried with him beneath that foreign earth, 

I thought of Tucker's high and varied powers, 

His fame, of all indeed that made him ours ; 

The sweet benignity, the careless grace. 

With earnest thought commingled in his face : — 

You watched his genius — saw its steady shine. 

Its full meridian, its undimmed dechne ; 



10 Virginia — A Poeyn. 

How bright the noonday, how serene and clear 

The solemn evening of that calm career, 

And mark how pure a lustre lingers yet 

Where from our loving gaze that full-orbed genius set ! 

Where shall the poet find, tho' wandering long, 

A spot so fragrant of unuttered song 

As this old city, whose colonial glory 

Fades into Jamestown's legendary story ? 

One mouldering tower, o'ergrown with ivy, shows 

Where first Virginia's capital arose. 

And to the tourist's vision far withdrawn 

Stands like a sentry at the gates of dawn. 

The church has perished — faint the lines and dim 

Of those whose voices raised the choral hymn. 

Go read the record on the mossy stone, 

'Tis brief and sad — oblivion claims its own : 

Yet Fancy musing, by the placid wave, 

With gentle Wirt above some nameless grave. 

May animate the sleeping dust once more, 

And all the past in vivid tints restore. 

Nor should the picture lack for livelier strokes, 
(As this my poem sadly wants its jokes,) 
t When came the epic muse to later times : 

(I trust the change will brighten up my rhymes.) 

Oh ! those were jolly, good old days, in sooth, 

Consule Planco — in the Raleigh's youth. 

When to the town at Xmas would repair 

The gallant lords and ladies debonair ; 

When balls and races, dinners, routs, the play, 

In quick succession, made the season gay ; 

When Ennui was unknown — delightful age ! 

French modes and phrases were not then the rage ; 

When courtly lovers and their chosen flames 

In sweet simplicity took pastoral names ; 

Thus Damon fair Celinda's graces set 

To smoothest verses in the old Gazette, 

And Strephon, both to please and to adorn her, 

Courted his Chloe in the "Poet's Corner," 

While all — Celinda, Damon, Strephon, Chloe — 

Oh manly forms ! oh bosoms soft and snowy ! 

Danced stiff old minuets throughout the night, 

Visions of satin, spare my aching sight ! 



Virginia — A Poem. 11 

With grandest music floating round the Avliole — 
Ye powdered bigwigs, crowd not on my soul ! 

Fiction at last has turned its gaze, we knoAV, 

Upon those golden days of long ago ; 

And as, obedient to the prompter's call, 

Time's misty curtain rises over all. 

Before us now the quaint Comedians pass — 

And see ! the modern footlights blaze with gas. 

In robes resplendent, freshened every hue, 

The faded scarlet and the watery blue. 

The beaux and belles of long forgotten years 

Have "sly flirtations" 'neath the chandeliers; 

Yet in the brilliant crowd the form I see 

With greatest pleasure is the F. F. V. — 

Aristocratic type of lofty sires, 

Of whom 'tis said " Virginia never tires," 

When this great actor comes upon the stage. 

His graceful movements all my thoughts engage, 

As in the Bowery pit, Mose strains his eye, 

W^hen Billy Kirby rushes on to die ! 

Time changes all. When in the morning gray 

The smoke from Y'orktown slowly rolled away. 

And there revealed our flag flung proudly out 

Oer slippery mound and perilous redoubt. 

Another age Virginia ushered in — 

End pompous Court and Commonwealth begin ! 

Colonial grandeur soon aside was laid 

With sword and periwig and gold brocade. 

And of the prim old courtiers soon the last 

Walked grandly down into the dusky past. 

And now behold Virginia's active life 

Of varied labour and industrial strife — 

Where Spotswood followed on the Indian trail, 

They 're busy putting down the heavy rail ; 

And iron coursers thunder over the land 

Where pressed the "golden horse-shoe" in the sand; 

The constant roar of ponderous machines 

Drowns the blithe music of remote ravines ; 

In our Parnassus there's a recent hole 

In which the workmen dig for cannel coal ; 

And Cato, Liberty's devout admirer. 

Who wrote those essays in the old inquirer, 



12 Virginia — A Poem. 

For such pursuits has no more time to spare, 
But fattens Durhams for the Annual Fair. 

What tho' they say Virginia lags behind 

Her rival sisters in the march of mind ? 

What tho' so frequently 'tis ours to hear 

The pointless jest, the miserable sneer, 

From men, whose freedom 'twas her joy to save, 

Or States, whose every inch of soil she gave ? 

If some sweet lethargy has sealed her lips 

And quenched her vision in a brief eclipse ; 

And on the pedestal of former fame — 

Whose proud inscription is her simple name — 

She long has stood in statuesque repose, 

Pure as if hewn from everlasting snows, 

'Tis as Hermione, the peerless Queen, 

The glorious image, stood in Shakspeare's scene ; 

Soon shall the form descend, no more be stone, 

With flowing drapery and flashing zone. 

Walk forth in majesty, Minerva-like, 

And all who look on her with marvel strike ! 




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